ers

[ urs, airs ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

ervil.

ERS

or E.R.S.

Emergency Radio Service.

-ers

a semantically empty suffix that creates informal variations of more neutral nouns and adjectives by processes of truncation identical to those of -er ⁷ ( champers; preggers; starkers ); unlike that suffix, however, -ers is apparently productive, and words formed with it do not appear to belong to a restricted linguistic register, as university slang.

ERS

abbreviation for

earnings related supplement

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Word History and Origins

Origin of ers¹

Middle French < Old Provençal < Late Latin ervus, variant of Latin ervum. See ervil

Origin of ers²

Perhaps a conflation of -er ⁷ with the final element of bonkers and crackers in the sense “wild, crazy” (unless these words themselves contain this suffix); -s ³

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Example Sentences

Between 1999 and 2008, the number of severely intoxicated young women who wound up in E.R.s rose by 52 percent.

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